English Departments
Question:
Are all your students’ reading skills
improving when they study a novel as part of
your KS3 Curriculum?
Answer:
Maybe not? Then, consider using Guided
Reading in your lessons!
Summer 2004
Hertfordshire Schools’
Guided Reading Pilot:
Should we use Guided Reading?
What is Guided Reading?
Guided Reading is a short teacher led session involving a group of 5/6
students within an English lesson. The teacher models a strategy for reading
which is exemplified using the novel which the group are reading. The
students then try to apply the same strategy as a small group or
independently via discussion and group learning. Guided Reading is highly
focused and tightly planned to teach reading skills.
Hertfordshire English teachers wanted to
pilot Guided Reading in order to have:
1. A focused approach to teaching the skills of reading for all ability students
thus preventing the meandering approach to novel study at KS3 which,
thankfully, is almost a thing of the past!
2. A clearly focused use of teacher led guided work which has encouraged a
renewed awareness of individual teachers’ approaches to the teaching of
reading.
3. An excellent opportunity to make reading strategies explicit to students
and help students acquire a repertoire of reading strategies.
4. A great opportunity for independent work.
2
Teaching Reading
Hertfordshire English Departments
Whole Class Readers
What we’re doing right:
Ø Excellent choices of novels in schools across Hertfordshire
Ø Inspired and innovative speaking and listening, drama and writing
activities which are thematically linked to the novels
Where we’re quickly improving:
Ø Planned use of non-fiction texts which are thematically linked to the novel
Ø Modelling of the writer’s craft using extracts from the main novel or other
linked fiction and non-fiction extracts
How we would like to move forward:
Ø Explicit teaching of reading strategies and the terms associated with these
strategies
Ø Intervention at the point of reading using Guided Reading and Group
Reading sessions with small groups
3
Guided Reading Pilot in Hertfordshire
How do students learn to read?
Students learn to read using the Searchlights
Model of Reading:
1. Graphic Recognition – students recognise the visual shape of the word
before they know what each letter represents.
2. Phonics – students learn the sounds in words and how these sounds can
be different according to their placement within a word or the word itself.
3. Context – students learn a word and its relationship to a picture or the
description surrounding the word
4. Grammar – the place of a certain type of word within a sentence.
Students can anticipate what type of word should go where in a sentence.
These different searchlights are deployed at different times in a student's
reading development depending on the type of learner they are and the type
of reading they are doing.
4
How do students of all abilities continue
to improve their reading skills?
Improve students’ reading by allowing them to use their searchlights but by
explicitly prompting them to use and talk about a range of reading strategies
which they may not even know they are using! Use this list of strategies as a
card sort. Give students a task or a question and get them to tell you which
reading strategy they anticipate using:
Reading Strategies
Predicting
You make informed guesses about the text
Skimming
You read quickly through the sentences getting a
gist of the understanding of the text
Scanning
Your eyes dart around a text searching for a
specific word/phrase/number
Close reading
You pay close attention to the sentences, taking
time to understand the meaning
Questioning
You ask questions about a text to clarify your ideas
Reading backwards and forwards
When you have to read back in a text or read
forward in order to make connections or clarify your
ideas
Empathising
When you put yourself in someone else’s shoes
and feel what they feel
Visualising
You see a picture in your mind to help gain a better
impression or understanding of the text
Inferring
When someone makes a point that isn’t obvious
and you have to read ‘between the lines’ to find the
meaning
Students need to understand that they are already often using these reading strategies
and students should be prompted to recognise when they use them or when it is
appropriate to use them. Guided Reading sessions offer the opportunity to intervene at
the point of reading so that students can learn how to understand more about a text.
5
How do I set up Guided Reading in my
Department?
Hertfordshire English teachers have piloted Guided Reading. Some schools
have used the materials available on the NATE website (comprising a
sequence of 11 lessons with extra resources and Guided Reading plans and
Group Card activities for students available for free) and other schools have
taken the basic premise of Guided Reading and designed their own
implementation system. Feedback from the pilot schools has suggested that
GR can be implemented using different formats according to the needs of
each individual school:
6
Option 1
Description:
Option 1: Students in Groups of 5. Each group reads their own novel over a
period of 11 lessons. Groups work independently of the teacher using a
Group Work instruction card, unless they have a Guided Reading session
which is led by the teacher. (Group and Guided Reading Cards are already
written and available for free at www.nate.org.uk – for the novels on the Nate
GR list.)
Comments from Teachers:
Option 1 was successful where the teacher used pre-prepared resources and
the students were confident enough to be able to work independently during
their Group Work. Several teachers felt that this lesson structure was a good
transitional link from Year 7 back to Year 6 allowing continuity with the GR
lesson structure in Year 6. ‘Routine’ was the key message from teachers
who tried this format with Year 8 or Year 9 classes where they had had a one
or two year gap from this lesson structure since Year 6.
Option 1 Advantages :
Promotes wider reading and the sharing of reading experiences
Option 1 Disadvantages:
Requires close attention to classroom logistics and extra planning and
preparation for classes with extreme differences of ability and/or behaviour
management issues.
7
Option 2
Description:
Option 2: The whole class reads the same novel over a period of 11 lessons.
Groups work independently of the teacher using a Group Work instruction
card, unless they have a Guided Reading session which is led by the
teacher.
Comments from Teachers:
Option 2 was successful when the teacher used pre-prepared resources and
adapted the Group Card activities into Guided Reading Teaching Sequences
so that the teacher could do GR with a different group every lesson.
Option 2 Advantages :
It is easier to manage Group Tasks because all groups apart from the
Teacher led GR group are doing the same task.
Option 2 Disadvantages:
Students are not sharing their wider reading experiences as they are all
studying the same book.
8
Option 3
Description:
Option 3: The whole class reads the same novel over a half term during
which time, one lesson a week will be dedicated to GR apart from the first
week and last week of the half term which will have 3 lessons dedicated to
GR. The first week has three lessons to introduce students to GR and the
last week has three lessons because students use these lessons to prepare
for a presentation of the book. In the dedicated GR lessons, groups work
independently of the teacher using a Group Work instruction card, unless
they have a Guided Reading session which is led by the teacher. In the
other lessons the novel is used to teach objectives for writing, speaking and
listening and drama as well as incorporating linked themes to non-fiction
extracts or activities.
Comments from Teachers:
Option 3 was successful where a scheme of work was already in place for a
particular novel yet the teachers also wanted to raise the profile of focusing
on the skills of reading. This was achieved by using the Guided Reading
Cards and Group Reading Cards which were adapted into the scheme for
one lesson a week. In some schools, this was known on the timetable as the
‘Guided Reading’ lesson. The nature of GR is about focused reading skills
and so the students would often have to re-read an extract or chapter to do
their Group/Guided work activity – an activity which always had a new and
different focus from their other lessons.
Option 3 Advantages :
All the learning opportunities of GR can be delivered without displacing any
of the key curricula entitlements for the students. GR works alongside the
good practice activities for writing, speaking and listening and drama and is
not a discrete entity.
Option 3 Disadvantages:
Re-educating students that re-reading with a new purpose is a vital part of
learning about the skills of reading
9
From the NATE GR book list, Pilot
schools in Hertfordshire recommended
the following books for options 2 and 3:
Year 7
Goodnight Mr Tom
Two Weeks with the Queen
Year 8
Holes
The Windsinger
Year 9
Stone Cold
Tulip Touch
Other New Class Novels which would need GR sessions writing for them are
available on the Herts website
http://www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/english/ks3/reading
10
Top 5 Reasons to implement Guided
Reading
1. Guided Reading helps to focus planning for the
teaching of active reading
2. Demystifies reading for many students
3. Reinforces skills which the students already use
4. Gives students the meta-language to talk about
their repertoire of reading strategies
5. Students can answer the question: ‘What have you
learned about ways of reading?’
The effective deployment of the teacher can really
make the difference in improving students’ reading.
The teacher is not just facilitating or ‘doing’ reading
but is teaching reading.
11
Pilot Hertfordshire Schools
Thank you to the schools and teachers who took part in the Hertfordshire GR
pilot (not all the teachers are listed here but the KS3 team extends their
thanks to all who took part):
Ø Roxanne Wilkins at Fearnhill School, Letchworth
Ø Katie Fisher at St Albans Girls School, St Albans
Ø Sue Hill at Townsend School, St Albans
Ø Wendy Proctor at Forest House Education Centre
Ø Cait Rickard at Sir John Lawes, Harpenden
Ø Pippa Conroy at Stanborough School, Welwyn Garden City
Ø Jan Baker at Edwinstree Middle School, Buntingford
Ø Helen Russell at The Highfield School, Letchworth
12
Appendix of resources which GR Pilot
schools found helpful.
1. Good Readers poster
2. Reading Journal Ideas
3. Using Plenaries
4. Top Tips for Students
5. Good Readers Card Sorts
6. Books need good hooks
7. Example of Lesson 3 Group Work for Two Weeks with the Queen (plan)
8. Example of Lesson 3 Guided Work for Two Weeks with the Queen (plan)
9. Guided Reading plan as ‘slotted in’ to ‘King of Shadows’ (Highfield School)
10.
King of Shadows extracts
13